Shannon Biggs

Shannon Biggs is the Director of the Community Rights program at Global Exchange. She recently co-authored two books, Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grass Roots and The Rights of Nature.

Her current work focuses on assisting communities confronted by corporate harms to enact binding laws that place the rights of communities and nature above the claimed legal “rights” of corporations. Over 160 communities have passed these new laws across the US, and have used this new understanding to stop working defensively against corporations and take courageous action to assert their rights to make governing decisions where they live. She is also a leading international speaker, author and activist on the growing movement for Rights of Nature. Shannon is a lecturer of weekend “Democracy Schools” that explore the rights-based framework for change, and leads rights of nature trainings around the country. She sits on the board of the Oakland Institute and the Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus.

Prior to coming to Global Exchange she was a senior staffer at International Forum on Globalization (IFG), where she organized large international teach-ins and wrote and edited for IFG publications. She also was a Lecturer in International Relations at San Francisco State University. Shannon holds a Masters in Economics/Politics of Empire the London School of Economics (LSE), and has a BS in International Relations from San Francisco State University (SFSU).